


this is what we are

by nereid



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, basically all the pairings are minor, this is an excuse for contemplation not fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26516074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nereid/pseuds/nereid
Summary: Forever's a long time to fill, but they try their best.
Relationships: Caroline Forbes & Rebekah Mikaelson, Caroline Forbes/Damon Salvatore, Caroline Forbes/Stefan Salvatore, Klaus Mikaelson & Rebekah Mikaelson, Klaus Mikaelson/Stefan Salvatore, Rebekah Mikaelson/Damon Salvatore, Rebekah Mikaelson/Stefan Salvatore
Kudos: 13





	this is what we are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tenshinrtaiga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenshinrtaiga/gifts).



> written a long time ago, archiving now; for tenshinrtaiga on LJ, for the prompt:
> 
> any variation of Damon/Caroline/Klaus/Rebekah/Stefan - I know somewhere deep in my soul that love never lasts and we've got to find other ways to make it alone.

(It's always been Damon and Stefan, never Damon or Stefan. She's just the first girl with a different face to see it.)

There's Damon and there's Caroline, and Damon has Caroline's broken headband in his hands, so Stefan smiles, because it's a Polaroid moment if he ever saw one.

(He'd been trying to stretch it as much as he could without breaking it, but she tries not to read anything symbolic in that.)

Stefan buys her a new one, she smiles when he gives it to her.

(Her smile is why he does it really, because sometimes she smiles and sometimes it makes him more human, so he does things that make her smile.)

*

Forever's a long time to fill, but they try their best.

(To Damon, it's all pretty clear. He takes what he wants. No regrets.)  
It doesn't matter what he says to blondie or if he kisses her too roughly or if she throws him out the window one time too many. They have eternity after all.

"You'll never love me. Not like you do her."  
(At this she kisses him; better to prevent any further response.)

"I never thought it was love you were after."  
(At this he smiles. That damn (beautiful sad) smile of his.)

(To Caroline, it's a bit less clear. She takes what she can get on the way.)

(He, on the other hand, is nothing like his dark haired brother.)

She despises herself these days, not quite sure how upset she is supposed to be over maybe having a bit of a crush on her best friend's sometimes boyfriend.

(It's nothing really, she convinces herself. He helped her when she first turned, and he's all around a good guy, and she's even helped him a time or two.)

Mostly she just reflects on how she likes the rare moments when he's less of a very serious very old vampire, and more of a man who likes to sit with her at bars, and tell her stories of past times, times he thinks she would have enjoyed.

"And the dresses?"

"You would have loved the dresses."

Her only experience with 1920s is the Mystic Falls Decade Dance, and it's hardly a fond memory. The dresses are nice, yes, but the 1920s men are jealous and competitive and possesive. They promise so much, and then death happens and her head is filled with doubts and questions and then, when she looks at the face of the man she used to love, it's no longer his face, no longer his eyes. It's not the other one's face either, it's a perverse mixture, one she can't handle. She runs away from him, whoever he is nowadays. It's too much.

Of course, you can never run away for as long as you wish to.

(It starts like a joke.)

A blonde walks into a bar, and it sounds like an old, boring joke, but it's neither boring, nor funny.

"Oh, the Original Blonde appears."

"The Lesser Blonde speaks."

Caroline's smile widens when she sees they're drinking the same drink (bourbon; because Damon's taught them both).

"How are they? The Salvatores." Rebekah asks, unusually shy.

"Mostly not in plural these days. Stefan's with Elena. Eternal love, and all that. Damon's… himself. Drunk, mostly. Klaus?"

"The whole family's together now. Do you maybe know where Damon is?"

Some people just never learn, Caroline rolls her eyes while writing down the address.

(Rebekah loves Klaus too much, and hates him too much, and now she's getting used to him all over again, and Damon never loves her at all: he's constant; he makes it easy for her to come back to him.)

Everything about Damon is constant. Day, time, weather, year, those things don't matter. Don't change him at all. Blood and bourbon, always blood and bourbon. Blondes when he tries to pretend it doesn't matter she chose his brother; brunettes when he just needs some reminder, because he's the guy who waits 145 years for a comet to pass, but he still fucks around in the meantime.

Some nights are a bit of a blur to him, and some nights he can barely tell if it's Caroline or Rebekah with him, or both.  
(He figures that whichever girl it is, it's still the wrong one. It can't matter what color her eyes are or what kind of accent she has, because her hair isn't long and straight and brown, and she doesn't pronounce his name as if it's the most offensive word in the English language.)

*

Stefan offers Caroline blood in the morning, every time. He doesn't say "You look like you haven't slept all night," or "Your shirt is missing three buttons," or "He'll never love you, you know?"  
(Because she does know.)

Instead he invites her to come hunting with him, and she smiles.

If Damon can break it, Stefan can fix it.

(The name is Salvatore, as in savior.)

Some days, when he walks through the streets, or sometimes when he runs after shadows in the woods, he knows Klaus is there.

(It would be so easy to pretend he was in Chicago in the 20s again, drinking and dancing and tearing everything apart.)

"Hello Stefan," Rebekah greets him, leans on the nearest oak; there's a smile on her lips (but not like in the 20s, no, there's more Klaus in her smile nowadays.)

"Rebekah," he nods, bites into the squirrel. (If he bites hard enough, maybe it'll be enough, and he won't need anything else.)

(Klaus smiles at him though, like he knows everything there is to know about Stefan.)

"Still dieting, I see."

"I'm in transition."

"I still say you were much more fun when you drank humans."

"What do you want, Klaus?"

("Leave me alone, Klaus, I hate you, Klaus. Klaus, Klaus, Klaus.")

"Same as always."

"The answer's the same then."

Klaus smiles then, before he leaves. (He is a man of patience, if anything.)

"He thinks you'll give in eventually."

"I wouldn't count on it."

"See you later, Stefan," she says, winks, and Stefan knows he'll be able to hear every kiss and scratch and cry from Damon's room tonight.

("What can I say, I dig older women," Damon said when Stefan asked about it.)

(102 years from then, Stefan will kiss Klaus on that same spot, blood in his mouth, blood in Klaus' mouth; won't breathe, or think, just kiss, because Klaus has always been his friend, only never really.)

Forever's a long time to fill, but they try their best.


End file.
